How To Launch a New Idea In 30 days

Why launching fast? Why in 30 days?

If you have a business idea and you give yourself 30 days to launch it, the question isn’t “is this a good idea?” but becomes: “how am I going to make it happen?” Suddenly, it’s much more practical.

I always consider that all ideas are good ideas. But you need to select the best one. And during that process of selection, the biggest danger is your inaction.

As long as I haven’t tried to make 1$ on this idea, then I feel like I am wasting time and energy on it. So I don’t want to spend too much time “considering the eventuality of the potential” but rather giving it a go and try this idea.

When I was still the owner of DaBlend Hostel, we would value new ideas a lot. Any customer feedback, any employee’s initiative, any observation or improvised brainstorming to find new services for the hostel, new activities or new products to sell was highly encouraged.

I was viewing my hostel as the host of many smaller business ideas that were living under the same roof. For example, we would organise family dinners for all the guests to eat together. Meanwhile the idea is great for helping your guests to socialize; how do you execute it? Do you hire a chef, do you cook yourself? do you bring people to the restaurant? what about pricing of such a service? how do you make money and who could be interested actually? what food do you cook? Do you invite only the hostel guests or outside guests? etc…

The more questions you answer, the more questions come up. And these questions can become doubts and lead to inaction.

So in order to avoid inaction, I was always trying to launch ideas as fast as possible before it would die on my notebook.

In the case of the family dinner, we tried many different formulas, but I remember that from the day someone gave me this idea, on that evening we were having a family dinner. A beta version, to test this idea… And with that first result, everyone in the hostel could already have a better feedback about this idea and I’d have a better understanding of this idea: of its potential.

“Wait, so… you have an idea and you just launch it??” you may say…

Let’s imagine I am having 10 new potential business ideas right now. I know I don’t have the time to open 10 different businesses or to work on ten ideas at the same time.

How do I select my ideas?

It’s very simple… I chose the one I like the most!

I know that I’ll have to invest time, money, efforts, bring people to this project, motivate them, find clients, motivate them too… the hardest task of all in this “idea” is to convince people, to gain their trust and to stay confident yourself. So I must love it!

Now, pick the one idea you love the most and let’s launch it!

So how to launch your idea in 30 days?

Let’s define “the launch” first. Launching an idea for me means testing and make my first $ by selling to a random person.

So if today your idea is to sell your homemade cheesecake online; then consider the launch of this idea the period from today until you make your first order from someone you’ve never met before.

You could also have a stable and growing consulting business and trying to launch a new service to a different target audience; my methodology would remain the same: “how to make your first sale in 30 days or less?”

How are you going to make it happen?

Actually, let’s keep this cheescake idea for the rest of the article; as you know I write this in the morning. And this is going to motivate me to get my breakfast asap ;)!

The first thing I want to do is to test the idea.

You want to know, for real, if someone is interested in paying for your idea; if so why and if not, what would this person would be willing to pay for.

The whole point of testing your idea is to be able to make money with it OR if unsuccessful, how to make this idea evolve so that next time, you make money with it OR give up on that idea but at least with a tangible reason.

This is a plan I drafted in May 2020, when I was trying to launch 12 projects in 12 months. Let me explain my methodology:

Market Research & Positioning (10 DAYS)

We talk about your strategy here. You cannot go to fight if you don’t have a plan. So during these 10 days, you don’t run around and ask for people to buy your product. You get ready.

Make some researches about your potential clients; who buys cheesecake? what occasion? how do they consume it? how your future client is talking about it? Are you wholesaling? selling by unit? Selling to supermarkets or to 23 year-old millenials? etc.

You want to come up with at least these three things:

• define your avatar (or persona): an avatar is a portrait of your targeted audience: who buys your product or service? how do they live, behave, what do they like and what’s their hobbies? what’s motivating them to buy? this is the person you will have in mind when figuring out who to sell it to.
  
  

• choose one product or one service first: If you intend to sell many different products it’s ok, but in the test phase you want your offer to be as simple as possible. Try to package something that is simple, basic and easy to advertise for and that people want the most. Remember that you are testing your idea.
  
  

• write your story in a way that will motivate people to buy. I love the structure that Chris Guillebeau uses in his book “Side Hustle”: he invites you to introduce yourself like this:

  “I started this” (enter the name of your business) “because I noticed that” (explain the problem you are solving) “so that’s why I created” (name of your service). Then you can talk about your product, etc.

Testing the idea (10 DAYS)

Now that you have your target, your product and your sales pitch; it’s time to test your idea. My favorite way in our cheesecake example would be to organise an event and invite my potential target audience for a first “taste” of my idea, leading them to make an order for my cakes at a discounted rate.

Or you could sponsor an event happening soon; saying that you can provide free cheesecake tasting during the event in exchange of being able to advertise for your business and take future orders or exchange namecards/contact details. Of course, you want to choose an event that will gather potential future customers…

However, if you want to sell online, you can also use Tim Ferriss’s testing model where you set a 3 pages website and get people to actually place an order with a replicable business model. It’s one of the best testing method I’ve seen. You can find out more on his book “The Four Hour Work Week”.

During this phase I would create a Facebook page or a website if you can and keep the branding simple. You want to show photos of people using your product or services. You want to share your story and start getting people to know you better.

Ideally, you want to collect testimonials from people who tested your product and reshare them on your website and social medias. This is the best way to get recommended by them and improve your brand authority.

Start selling 10 DAYS

From the phone numbers or emails that you collected during your testing phase, you can now start offering people to buy your cheesecakes.

I believe social medias are the best tool in 2021 to reach your targeted audience fast. From using advertising or not. You can join groups of people sharing this similar interest. You can message people directly, you can email your friends, etc.

It’s the phase where your first orders are coming, where you test your production quality and your workflow. It’s also the time for deciding if you want this idea to become a business opportunity or not or else… but at least, you make the decision based on your real experience, not thoughts.

What’s next?

Welcome to the entrepreneur’s journey ideas’ cycle.

I like to refer it more as a series of many ideas and events that you constantly need to mature and combine with other ideas (and events) before starting to transform them into opportunities.

It’s a long process. You need to find the ideas, you need to learn how to select your ideas, how to turn them into reality: profitable products or services and long term business opportunities. You may want to be careful that this idea is still aligned with your vision….

But what made you get this idea in the first place? Is your idea really the start of your journey?

Additionally, there are many risks in pursuing a new idea: the risk of failure, of losing your time on this idea, of making the wrong decision… Hence my initial question: how to launch a new idea in 30 days.

Because from the moment you start pursuing your idea, other ideas will join the flow and you will constantly need to select them, test them and grow your business.

That is why, when you are more experienced with this process, you become less affraid of sharing your ideas. Because you know in the end that between an idea and the result that comes out of “executing this idea”; a lot of things can change.

Conclusion:

If you give yourself 30 days to launch an idea, you shift your own mindset from “is this a good idea” or “am I good enough” to a more actionable question: “how to make this idea a reality”.

I personally love this mindset because you can quickly eliminate toxic thoughts and unworthy ideas. And while you push your business to grow and scale, you can also test ideas quite quickly, which can help you to stay ahead of your competition and keep satisfying your clients with fresh ideas on a regular basis.

Gather your ideas.
Select the one you love the most.
Launch it.
Observe the result.
Repeat.

Thank you for reading until the end!

Every morning, after my meditation 🧘🏽and my breakfast ☕️, I sit at my desk for one hour and write answers to my own questions, as an entrepreneur ✍️. Then I publish it on this blog, hoping to help other entrepreneurs to find answers to their questions too. And this, no matter your “level”.

To participate, ask me questions on social medias @nicolasthanhg (click on the icons below). I may answer directly or write an article about it.

Now, you can also go back to the blog page and search for articles related to your scope of interest. 🔍

Have a good day,
Nicolas Thành